How to Start Marketing Your Business Today without Spending a Dollar – 1 Simple Strategy

Suppose you just opened your business for the day, or you work from home and are also similarly at the start of another wonderful day of running your business, and doing what you love to do. However, the only difference today is that you are thinking of doing some marketing.

You are wondering if there are any strategies you can employ on the cheap and right away. Are there marketing strategies you can employ today, without spending any money? The answer is yes, and I want to inform you about an easy strategy you can start using today. This is a strategy that is proven to work, done by both small and big businesses, and has added benefits for your business.

Sales Promotion

A sure fire way to increase the activity around your products or services and grab your customers attention is to lower some prices and offer a sales promotion. Since you are already in business chances are you have customers coming into the store this very day to buy some of your product, or you have clients you are meeting with to offer your services to. By placing one or more of your products or services on sale you get the benefit of motivating these potential customers to make a purchase. You are helping a customer who might have been on the fence about making a purchase to buy. The first thing to keep in mind when offering a sales promotion is not to be scared to reduce prices. Some business owners might be a little reluctant to slash prices, but if done right you can actually come out in the black.

Game Plan

The first thing to do before you move forward with your sales promotion is to determine your goals for doing this sale. You should always have clearly defined goals with all your business matters. Even if your goal is to sell just five of any particular item, having that number as your benchmark can help you measure the success of your sales promotion.

After you write down your goals figure out which of your products or services you wish to put on sale. For example you can offer a sale on your products that don’t sell as well, so you can move more of those products. Reducing the price of your top selling items can also increase your revenue and have a positive effect on your bottom line.

After you’ve determined which of your products or services you want to place on sale, the next step is to figure out the new sales prices. Once again don’t be afraid to offer significant price reductions. By bring down the price by even 20% or 30% (again make sure the benefits outweigh the costs for you) you make it possible for customers who were a little reluctant at the previous price point to take the leap.

Remember the prices you charge regularly are probably in line with the prices your competition charges, so even a slight price reduction can go a long way in ensuring more traffic and new customers. You also get the added benefit of creating buzz. Most of the people that take advantage of your sale have friends, family, or other people they know that they will want to share the news of your sale with.

After you have completed all the previous steps, the last thing you should do is to set the length of your sales promotion. This is a very important step. You do not want to do what seems like an endless sale, because that might condition your customers to always expect a sales discount.

You should try to make the length of your promotion as short as possible. A shorter time frame makes customers more likely to come in and take advantage of the sale.

Now that you have all the details of your sales promotion set and ready to proceed, there is one final step you must take. You have to promote your promotion.

Sure, the customers who come in to your store will know about the sale, and yes some of them might even tell others on twitter or facebook, but you will want to take it a step further.

Use your own social media pages or accounts to tell all your followers about the deal you are offering.

You can also get your sale listed on one of the many deal sites like slickdeals. Sites like these have many users and offer even more exposure to potential customers. You can also do a press release about your sales promotion on sites like PR Newswire.

One of the main things I want you take away from reading this piece is that marketing does not have to be hard, expensive, or time consuming. It should also serve as a reminder that you need to set aside time for marketing. There are plenty of easy to do strategies that you should make a part of your annual calender.

So do you set aside time to design and plan for your marketing? What easy and simple strategies do you employ?